


electric

by tsukiakari



Category: Nancy Drew (Video Games)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-29
Updated: 2013-12-29
Packaged: 2018-01-06 14:06:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1107756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tsukiakari/pseuds/tsukiakari
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Niko was 100% a scientist."</p>
            </blockquote>





	electric

The darkness of his study is perhaps its most agreeable part, helping to soothe and direct his mind to whatever issue currently lies at hand. Throughout the long years of his career he's never had overwhelming trouble, neither with stress nor with distraction; but at the same time he loves the darkness, the calm and solitude it brings. As fascinating and entertaining as humanity can be, fleeing it will always be a respite for him.

He sits at the desk, ignoring the door behind him. As strange as the lock may be, its new mechanics a stark contrast against the door's smooth carved wood, he has never doubted its security. Nor has he doubted the entrance, resting where it does under the signpost of his muse. No matter what he hears above, no matter the footsteps or the voices that might murmur beyond the ceiling, his study will be safe.

Yet again, his mind touches briefly on the concept of the safety that distance brings. He still sharply recalls his youth, when he'd fought wildly against all the faults of his personality, against the unhappy desires to be separate from humanity and the equally magnetic pull toward it. Even now he still instinctively wishes to change that. But just as quickly, the ideas retreat back across the clinical divide in his thoughts, pushed there by his own logic. It isn't logical, or even important, to dwell on something that can't be changed by thought. Action is in a way his drug, bringing the rush of subtle satisfaction each time an experiment succeeds or a plan forms well under his critical eye. Thought has its place, but it lies hand-in-hand with action.

And so it's with some small bit of careless confusion that he reaches out to his desk and picks up the worn leather journal in one hand. This, in itself, is the main source of all his pointless thought. It fuels his dreams, directs his impulses, focuses his goals toward what he wants to be; and at the same time, reading it has grown more and more pointless with time. At this point he knows each journal entry by heart. He can recite them from memory alone, though always with a nagging tinge of regret that his blunt voice lends nothing to the brilliant words. With the slightest mental effort he can close his eyes and see each page against the red dark of his eyelids, the words standing out as though backlit by the glow of genius behind them.

Yet somehow, it's the sense of reading that appeals to him most. Feeling the journal in his hands, the smooth pebbly surface of the leather, already worn down by the faint acids in his skin; opening it, hearing the crackle that ripples down its worn spine; wiping sweat from his fingers to turn the thin rough pages without damaging them. Damage is indeed the worst of his fears. As much as he might deny it, or pretend to feel otherwise, his reason to work, to live, would be gone if the journal were damaged.

He goes through the ritual again, running fingertips over the leather cover, listening for the shiver of sound when it opens, leaning back in his chair and cupping the open journal in one hand as the flowing script inside comes into view. The warmth of sure comfort fills him up, like a hidden spring somewhere in his mind that only wants reassurance.

Footsteps echo out above his head as he reads. He recognizes their tone easily as Ryan's quick light tread. A momentary image of her invades his other thoughts, showing the blush on her cheeks and the glow in her eyes, a glow with equal parts stubbornness and admiration. It's a caustic mixture, one that would explode into millions of pieces if poured into one of the lab's bottles, and he wishes for that moment that he could care about it, or even accept it. To be able to feel something beyond the simple sensations at hand - the concept frightens him, invokes his instinct to flight. He is uncertain if the fear stems from a wish to avoid such feelings, or simply from imagining their possible impact. But in the same moment, the same thought fills him with sadness, and the dull ache through his chest is even more disturbing.

Then the image is gone, and with it goes the contemplation of feelings. Ryan departs from the room above, her footsteps retreating into silence as the door closes, a distant reverberation of metal on metal. The silence returns, inviting him wordlessly into the world of his long-dead mentor.

He continues to read, with the ebb and flow of science's greater music murmuring in his ears.


End file.
